1827: Anti-Gravity and Ancient Utopias
George Tucker — America’s first Science Fiction author?
This is the fourth article in a series exploring “The History of Science Fiction”.
One question that makes charting the history of Science Fiction so complicated and intriguing is, “How do you define what Science Fiction is”. If one of the essential elements included in Science Fiction is, “exploring new worlds,” can this definition be stretched to include,“exploring new islands on the planet Earth”? If it can, and many think it could, then one of the early works of Science Fiction is Utopia, written by the statesman and counselor to King Henry VIII of England, Thomas More. Utopia is an account of the fictional explorer Raphael Hythlodaeus and his discovery of the island of Utopia, off the coast of Brazil, leading to a number of discourses on the nature of governance.
However, modern science fiction is associated with leaving the Earth’s boundaries and traveling through space; and since the dawn of civilization, humanity has been captivated by the mystery and wonder of the cosmos. The dream of traveling among the stars has been a recurring theme in various cultures throughout history, from the ancient Babylonians to the dawn of Queen Victoria’s reign.
In ancient Babylon, the priest-astronomers meticulously observed the movements of celestial bodies and developed complex astronomical theories. In the Hellenistic era of the 3rd century BCE, the priest Berossus wrote extensively on cosmology and the heavens. While his works have been lost to time, they likely contained references to celestial journeys and encounters with otherworldly beings, fueling imaginations with tales of divine voyages among the stars.
The Greek writer Lucian of Samosata (c. 125–180 A.D. penned a satirical work titled True History, which included elements of space travel. In this tale, the protagonist and his companions are carried to the moon by a whirlwind, where they encounter a variety of bizarre creatures and witness strange phenomena.
During the Islamic Golden Age from the 8th century to the 13th century, scholars such as Al-Farabi and Ibn al-Haytham explored the concept of space travel in their philosophical and scientific writings. Al-Farabi, a renowned philosopher and polymath, speculated about the possibility of other inhabited worlds beyond Earth. Ibn al-Haytham, known for his groundbreaking work on optics, also pondered the mysteries of the cosmos in his astronomical treatises, envisioning celestial realms beyond the reach of human exploration.
In Renaissance times, the Italian epic poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto was published in its complete form in 1532. The story is a chivalric romance, a tradition dating from the late Middle Ages, and features a protagonist (Orlando) that is a variation on the well-known character of Childe Roland. The story takes place against the background of the war in the 9th century between Charlemagne’s Christian paladins and the Saracen army that has invaded Europe and is attempting to overthrow the Christian empire. The first English translation by John Harington was published in 1591 at the request of Queen Elizabeth I. Orlando, Charlemagne’s most noble paladin, finds himself falling in love with the pagan princess Angelica. This princess, however, is in love with a Saracen infantryman, which drives Orlando into a frenzy of rage and despair.
The English knight Astolfo journeys to Ethiopia on a mythological beast called a hippogriff to find a cure for Orlando’s madness and there discovers the flaming chariot that the prophet Elijah used to enter the kingdom of Heaven. He uses it to ascend to the Moon in search for Orlando’s lost wits, because the poem has the wonderful conceit that everything that is misplaced or lost on the Earth ends up on the Moon (magical realism 400 years ahead of its time). Having found Orlando’s lost senses, Astolfo puts them in a bottle, returns to Earth and forces Orlando to sniff from the bottle. Orlando’s sanity is thus restored.
In the Renaissance era, the Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno envisioned a universe teeming with inhabited worlds and advocated for the idea of infinite space. Bruno’s bold cosmological theories, which posited the existence of multiple worlds and the possibility of interstellar travel, brought him into conflict with the religious authorities of his time. Despite facing persecution and ultimately being executed for his beliefs, Bruno’s visionary writings such as De l’infinito universo et mondi (On the Infinite Universe and Worlds), published in 1584, laid the groundwork for future explorations of the cosmos.
The Scientific Revolution of the 17th century saw further speculation about the practicalities of traveling in space. Johannes Kepler (1571–1630), was a German astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer. Although primarily known for his laws of planetary motion, Kepler also delved into speculative fiction regarding space travel. In his work Somnium (The Dream), published posthumously in 1634, he presented a fictional narrative envisioning a journey to the moon. The story follows the adventures of a young man, Duracotus, who is guided by a daemon named Fiolxhilde. Although Duracotus is propelled through the ‘aether’ by means of Fioxhilde’s magical powers Kepler explores genuine aspects of lunar geography, what the earth would look like from space, and the potential for life on other celestial bodies. Somnium is notable for its detailed descriptions of lunar landscapes and its inclusion of scientific principles of Kepler’s time, such as the heliocentric model of the solar system, into the world of literature.
Francis Godwin (1562–1633) was an English author and Bishop of Hereford, best known for his work The Man in the Moone, or A Discourse of a Voyage Thither published in 1638, five years after his death. Godwin tells the story of Domingo Gonsales, a Spanish merchant who discovers a way to travel to the moon using a chariot pulled by a flock of wild swans. Gonsales encounters various adventures during his journey and ultimately reaches the moon, where he discovers a utopian society inhabited by intelligent beings called Selenites (foreshadowing the aliens of the same name created by H. G. Wells).
Another influential figure who explored the idea of human space travel before the 19th century was Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655), a French novelist, playwright, and duelist. In his satirical novel L’Autre Monde (The Other World), published in 1657, Cyrano envisioned a voyage to the moon achieved first of all by filling small glass bottles with dew and rising up with them when the dew is warmed by the sun. Unfortunately his dew runs out and he is forced to land in Canada, but has more success later using a vessel propelled by gunpowder-fuelled rockets — which is the first historical example of using rockets to leave the earth’s atmosphere. After having arrived on the Moon, Cyrano encounters a society of lunar inhabitants who possess advanced technology and skewed philosophical insights — another satirical mirror to life on Earth.
Baron Munchausen is a fictional German nobleman created by the German writer Rudolf Erich Raspe in his 1785 book Baron Munchausen’s Narrative of his Marvellous Travels and Campaigns in Russia. The character is loosely based on baron Hieronymus Karl Friedrich, Freiherr von Münchhausen, and these tall tales have him traveling to the Moon once by a giant beanstalk and once in a sailing ship carried by a storm. There he meets the king with a detachable head depicted by Robin Williams in Terry Gilliam’s film “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (1988).
What all of these works have in common is that they are variations in the genre of Utopian fiction; sardonic and satirical reflections of the society the author lives in, exposing flaws and peculiarities and exploring alternatives.
In Ewan Morrison’s excellent article “The Problem with Utopias”, published in Quillette, May 2024, he stated: “One of the reasons why utopias are so unpopular is that – unlike dystopias – they present few good opportunities for storytelling and plot lines. Utopias have very little adventure or jeopardy.”
Morrison claimed that Utopian novels are basically “essays full of didactic exposition”, where the protagonist is only a cypher, given a tour of the newly discovered land and receiving lectures on the arrangements of society. The only plotline is a series of questions and answers which follow the structure of “What do you use for money?” “Money? What is this outlandish money of which you speak? Here, our trading is based on. — – ”
Usually, the only character development the protagonist has is the dilemma whether to remain in this utopia permanently or not.
Then, “A Flight to the Moon, or, The Vision of Randalthus” was published by A. Miltenberger of Baltimore in 1813, five years before the release of “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus”. Can we make a claim that the first Science Fiction novel was actually published in the USA?
Maybe not. We have a problem right off the bat, because George Fowler is a pseudonym (as was common in those days), and for some strange reason the true author of this novella never came forward. The story begins with the protagonist, Randalthus, resting by a riverbank after an evening stroll and contemplating the beauty of the full moon illuminating the beauty of the scenery around him. Suddenly, he is visited by an angelic being descending from the Moon itself in a bubble-shaped craft. The angel-creature invites Randalthus to the Moon in his “bubble”, and there he finds a civilization of beings physically identical to humans, living in a state of Utopian harmony with each other.
There follows a series of discussions about the perfection of the Lunarian society, and how superior it is compared to the peculiarities, vices, and general weaknesses of humans on Earth. It begins with scientific speculations on astronomy and the movements of the planets in the Solar System, but swiftly moves on to politics, religion, and general morality. The Lunarians fiercely condemn human beings for killing and eating animals and for enslaving other humans, and Randalthus glumly reflects on the sins of his own race. A Goodreads reviewer named Bee Ostrowsky, however, has called out the narrator (and by extension the author) for hypocrisy;
… the narrator then uses up about half the damn book describing how awful, uncivilized, and barbaric are the people found in nearly every part of the Earth excepting, of course, his own. Every religion other than his own is laughably, or pitiably, misguided. (The Lunarians, to his relief, all worship God.)
Interestingly, towards the end of the book Randalthus finds himself propelled through space and lands on the Sun, which he finds has a habitable surface and, like the Moon, is populated by intelligent, civilized humanoids;
The features of these people are very agreeable. Their hair and eyes are of a sparkling black. They possess great sensibility, and great vivacity; a flash rises in their cheek whenever they speak, and they laugh away hours in sportive and innocent gaiety.
In many critics’ opinion, the reason why George Fowler is not hailed as America’s first Science Fiction writer, is because the book is not recognizable as modern Science Fiction.
14 years later, however, in 1827 another fantastic journey was published.
Although A Voyage to the Moon: With Some Account of the Manners and Customs, Science and Philosophy, of the People of Morosofia, and Other Lunarians also had its fair share of Utopian satire (as you can tell by the title), it was the first work of literature to examine the scientific possibility of leaving the Earth’s atmosphere. It was also the first to tackle the concept of anti-gravity as a means of doing that … 70 years before Kurd Lasswitz did it in Auf Zwei Planeten (On Two Planets) and 74 years before H. G. Wells did it in the more famously known First Men in the Moon.
The novel/novella starts with a preface titled “Appeal to the Public”, in which the narrator (Joseph Atterley) gives a short summary of the extraordinary nature of his tale. In Chapter One, Atterley relates how he embarks on a trading journey to the “Burmese Empire, and in the neighbourhood of Mergui, on the Martaban coast.” After a violent storm at sea, the ship becomes lost and eventually lands at an uncharted strip of coastline. The ship’s crew start exploring the land’s interior, and reach …
“a little village in the mountainous district between the Irawaddi and Saloon rivers … This place, named Mozaun, was romantically situated in a fertile valley, that seemed to be completely shut in by the mountains.”
Atterley eventually meets a hermit known to the locals as “the Brahmin”, who is suffering from an unspecified illness. As the Brahmin fears he is near death, he decides to confide in Atterley and tell him a\ secret known only to a few.
He explains that …” There is a principle of repulsion as well as gravitation in the earth. It causes fire to rise upwards … After much labour and research, this principle has been found embodied in a metallic substance, which is met with in the mountain in which we are, united with a very heavy earth; and this circumstance had great influence in inducing me to settle myself here.
“This metal, when separated and purified, has as great a tendency to fly off from the earth, as a piece of gold or lead has to approach it. After making a number of curious experiments with it, we bethought ourselves of putting it to some use, and soon contrived, with the aid of it, to make cars and ascend into the air. We were very secret in these operations; for our unhappy country having then recently fallen under the subjection of the British nation, we apprehended that if we divulged our arcanum, they would not only fly away with all our treasures, whether found in palace or pagoda, but also carry off the inhabitants, to make them slaves in their colonies, as their government had not then abolished the African slave trade.”
The Brahmin tells the astonished Atterley that he and the other adepts made regular visits to the Moon, where they found an advanced civilization of humanoid beings — the Lunarians. The Brahmin asks Atterley to help him construct a new vessel with mineral mined from the mountain nearby, so the Brahmin can recover his health with Lunarian medicine. Atterley readily accepts, and after weeks of construction, they leave the Earth’s atmosphere together. They land on the Moon — “we opened the door, and found the air of the moon inconceivably sweet and refreshing” — and find themselves in the nation of Morosofia, and its chief city, Alamatua, described as “an emerald set in silver”.
This is their first contact with Lunarian society:
“The town of Alamatua seemed to contain about two thousand houses, and to be not quite as large as Albany. The houses were built of a soft shining stone, and they all had porticoes, piazzas, and verandas, suited to the tropical climate of Morosofia. The people were tall and thin, of a pale yellowish complexion; and their garments light, loose, and flowing, and not very different from those of the Turks.”
There are Utopian discussions and ruminations on medicine, politics, religion, food preparation, agriculture, crime and punishment.
This is one section describing the eccentric fashions of the lunar ladies:
“One piece of their attire was formed of a long piece of light stiff wood, covered with silk, and decorated with showy ornaments. It was worn across the shoulders, beyond each of which it jutted out about half a yard; and from either end a cord led to a ring running round the upper part of the head, bearing no small resemblance to the yard of a ship’s mast, and the ropes used for steering it. Several other dresses I saw, which I am satisfied would be highly disapproved by my modest countrywomen. Thus, in some were inserted glasses like watch crystals, adapted to the form and size of the female bosom. But, to do the Lunar ladies justice, I understood that these dresses were condemned by the sedate part of the sex, and were worn only by the young and thoughtless, who were vain of their forms. I observed too, that instead of decorating their heads with flowers, like the ladies of our earth, they taxed the animal world for a correspondent ornament. Many of the head-dresses were made of a stiff open gauze, occasionally stuck over with insects of the butterfly and _coccinella_ species, and others of the gayest hues. At other times these insects were alive; when their perpetual buzzing and fluttering in their transparent cages, had a very animating effect. One decoration for the head in particular struck my fancy: it was formed of a silver tissue, containing fireflies, and intended to be worn in the night.”
Conforming to the Utopian literary convention, Atterley eventually returns to Earth after residing on the Moon for four years, in the same vessel he traveled in. The Brahmin, now restored to health, returns to Benares; Atterley returns to an uncertain future in New York.
So who was George Tucker?
Tucker was quite a Renaissance man, being a scholar, lawyer, professor, politician, journalist, and writer of fiction. Educated at the College of William and Mary and trained in law, Tucker’s early career saw him practicing law and serving as a judge. However, his intellectual curiosity led him to pursue a number of other interests, including natural history, political philosophy, and literature. As a writer, he spanned various genres from legal treatises to fiction and poetry; his literary works often reflected his keen interest in science, technology, and social progress. The first three decades of the 19th century were marked by rapid advancements in science and technology, with innovations such as the steam engine and astronomical discoveries capturing the public imagination. The era was also filled with political upheavals and societal transformations, Tucker was well aware of the implications of these changes on governance, the future of American society, and the eternal human condition. A Voyage to the Moon provided him with a platform to explore these possibilities, in his own distinctive manner.
There is a great case to be made that it inspired Edgar Allan Poe to try writing Science Fiction in his short story The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall, and also inspired a certain New York journalist to concoct one of the greatest hoaxes that ever fooled the public … but we’ll get to that in a future article.
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